BREAKING NEWS

BREAKING NEWS

All washed up

Rising water brought several residents of a rural subdivision southeast of Minot to the Ward County Water Resource Board meeting Monday.

An existing drainage channel is not doing the job, residents of Whispering Meadows told the board. Water was nearing some homes along 62nd Avenue Southeast, inundating a septic tank and threatening a second septic system.

“It’s an emergency,” resident Tony Zeltinger said in pleading for the board’s help.

The board directed a contractor to clear an obstruction after members toured the area Monday. Some residents had built small bridges over the ditch in the past to access their back properties, and the board determined that an obstruction was occurring in one location.

This is not the first flood fight for residents of Whispering Meadows.

In the fall of 2011, the water board came to the aid of neighboring Countryside Villas and Whispering Meadows subdivisions with the dredging of existing ditches and opening of a slough outlet that had become plugged with vegetation and debris.

Last fall, the board had drainage channels constructed along 62nd Street and 24th Avenue Southeast. The channels were meant to move excess water, although residents worried that the channel contributed to the unwanted water flow.

AJ Waller, a Whispering Meadows resident, said he has added considerable fill to his yard to decrease persistent flooding, to no avail this year.

“My front yard is flooded,” he told the board. “I have standing water in my back yard. It’s over the lateral lines of my septic tank and it’s not too far from the septic.”

Waller reported late Monday afternoon that flooding was continuing and had worsened over his driveway. Residents would like a solution to the area’s water problems but so far haven’t been able to get one, he said.